The Works of Alexander Pope Part 17

[Footnote 78: To Argos, of which Danaus had been king, whence the Argives were also called Danai.]

[Footnote 79: Atreus, king of Mycenae, murdered the two sons of his brother Thyestes, and feasted their father with dishes made of their flesh.]

[Footnote 80: Bacchus forced the Theban women to a.s.semble, and give loose to the wild rites by which he was celebrated. It was on this occasion that Pentheus was ma.s.sacred by his mother.]

[Footnote 81: Nisus was king of Megara when it was besieged by Minos.

The king's daughter, Scylla, conceived a pa.s.sion for Minos, and to ensure him the victory she plucked from her father's head a purple hair upon which depended the preservation of himself and the city.]

[Footnote 82: Statius says that when Polynices was in the middle of the isthmus of Corinth he could hear the waves beat against both its sh.o.r.es.

"This," remarked Pope, "could hardly be; for the isthmus of Corinth is full five miles over," and he calls the introduction of the circ.u.mstance "a geographical error." It was his own geography that was at fault. The width of the isthmus is only three miles and a half. Pope spoilt the incident when he transferred it to the Scironian rock. Sciron was a robber and murderer, who compelled his victims to wash his feet upon the cliff, and while they were engaged in the operation he kicked them over into the sea.]

[Footnote 83: "We have scarcely in our language eight more beautiful lines than these, down to human care," ver. 481.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 84: Pope owed some happy expressions to the translation of Stephens:

The silent world does view Her airy chariot pearled with drops of dew.]

[Footnote 85: He again borrowed from Stephens:

And nodding through the air brings down in haste A sweet forgetfulness of labour pa.s.sed.]

[Footnote 86: A very faulty expression; as also below, verse 501,--"rolls a deluge on."--WARTON.

He copied Dryden's Virg. aen. iv. 638:

As when the winds their airy quarrel try.

He was indebted to a second couplet in the same translation, aen. ii.

565:

Thus, when the rival winds their quarrel try, Contending for the kingdom of the sky.]

[Footnote 87: "Showers" is an inappropriate word to denote the deluge of rain which flooded the earth, and "swept herds, and hinds, and houses to the main."]

[Footnote 88: The Inachus, and the Erasinus were rivers in the plain of Argos.]

[Footnote 89: The waters of the Lerna were infected by the venom from the serpent Hydra, which Hercules slew.]

[Footnote 90: The storm, by blowing down trees or branches, made an opening in the dense foliage through which the sun had never penetrated.]

[Footnote 91: In the first edition:

The prince with wonder did the waste behold, While from torn rocks the ma.s.sy fragments rolled.]

[Footnote 92: Dryden's Virg. aen. ii. 413:

The shepherd climbs the cliff, and sees from far The wasteful ravage of the wat'ry war.]

[Footnote 93: Dryden's Virg. Geor. i. 652:

Bore houses, herds, and lab'ring hinds away.]

[Footnote 94: Statius represents Polynices as terrified by the tempest.

Pope appears to have thought that this was derogatory to the character of the fugitive king, and he calls him, when gazing on the ravages caused by the storm, "the intrepid Theban," which conveys the impression that he was undaunted by the spectacle. In the same spirit Pope at ver.

527, has the line, "Thus still his _courage_ with his toils increased,"

where the original says that the stimulus which urged him on was fear.

But while Pope has obliterated the alarm which was generated by the tempest he has introduced in its place an alarm which had no existence.

In the midst of the havoc worked by the elements the recollection of his brother "wings the feet" of the intrepid Theban "with fears," though he is beyond his brother's reach, and has no suspicion at present that he designs to break the compact to reign alternately. The influence which the remembrance of Eteocles exercised over the mind of the wanderer is expressly distinguished by Statius from the fear, and means no more than that since Polynices was an exile from Thebes, he was compelled to proceed onwards till he could find an asylum in another state.]

[Footnote 95: A mountain on which stood the citadel of Argos.]

[Footnote 96: The temple at Prosymna was dedicated to Juno.]

[Footnote 97: Pope took the expression from Dryden, Virg. aen. vii. 79:

One only daughter heired the royal state.

And ver. 367:

Only one daughter heirs my crown and state.]

[Footnote 98: Strictly his sons-in-law.]

[Footnote 99: That is, he ordained that the oracles should be incapable of interpretation before it was fulfilled.]

[Footnote 100: Calydon, of which his father Oeneus was king.]

[Footnote 101: The mode in which the two fugitives became known to the king and gained admission to the palace, is not told by Pope, who has left upwards of seventy lines untranslated, and by the mutilation rendered the incidents improbable. Polynices reaches the palace first and lies down, worn out, on the pavement of the vestibule. Tydeus arrives at the same spot, and Polynices is unwilling that he should share the shelter. A quarrel ensues, and from words they proceed to blows. The king is disturbed by the uproar; he issues forth from the palace with attendants and torches to ascertain the cause; explanations follow, and these result in Tydeus and Polynices becoming the guests of Adrastus. "There is an odd account," Pope says to Cromwell, "of an unmannerly battle at fisty-cuffs between the two Princes on a very slight occasion, and at a time when, one would think, the fatigue of their journey, in so tempestuous a night, might have rendered them very unfit for such a scuffle. This I had actually translated, but was very ill satisfied with it, even in my own words, to which an author cannot but be partial enough of conscience."]

[Footnote 102: Before the victory of Hercules over the Nemean lion, he is said by Statius to have worn the skin of a lion which he slew in the neighbourhood of Mount Temessus.]

[Footnote 103: "Horror" at the thought of the dreadful forebodings which had been suggested by the literal language of the oracle; "glad" because of the manner in which the prediction was verified. Jortin, in a note on another pa.s.sage of the Thebais, says, "Statius could not help falling into his beloved fault of joining contraries together. He is too apt to seek this opposition in his words. He never indeed misses this favourite figure when he can bring it in."]

[Footnote 104: "Firm" for confirm was sanctioned by the frequent example of Dryden, from whose translation of Virg. aen. viii. 107, Pope has borrowed the entire couplet:

But oh! be present to thy people's aid, And firm the gracious promise thou hast made.]

[Footnote 105: In the first edition this verse was an Alexandrine, ending with "and wake the sleeping fires," which Pope took from Dryden, Virg. aen. viii, 720:

And on his altars waked the sleeping fires.]

[Footnote 106: "Fry" was the reading of all the editions till that of 1736, when "fly" was subst.i.tuted by an evident error of the press, and has been retained ever since.]

[Footnote 107: "Tutress" in the first edition. Acestis had been the nurse, and was now the duenna of the two daughters of Adrastus.]

[Footnote 108: The gorgon, Medusa, changed every one who saw her to stone. Perseus avoided the penalty by only looking at her reflection in a mirror as he cut off her head while she slept. Being the grandson of a king of Argos he was an Argive hero, whence his triumph was engraved upon the royal goblet. The artist had selected the moment when Perseus is darting into the air with the head of the gorgon, which, newly separated from the body, still retained the traces of expiring life.]

[Footnote 109: On account of the beauty of Ganymede, Jove sent an eagle to convey him from the earth to the habitations of the G.o.ds. There he was appointed cup-bearer, which rendered the incident appropriate to a drinking-vessel.]